


Failing To Starve

by Wldwmn



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I am shipper trash, Loneliness, but also hopeful feels, maybe pre-romance?, romantic interest?, sad feels, tw: eating disorder analogy, what even is that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:23:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8694478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wldwmn/pseuds/Wldwmn
Summary: Newt realizes he's finally met someone like him, even though she’s hardly like him at all. Someone lonely.
**edited to remove incorrect reference to Newt's expulsion**





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is told from Newt’s POV, and is heavily introspective. I’ve only seen the movie once (so far), so there’s a lot of speculation and me trying to find the right “voice” for Newt in this. You know that feeling you have when you need to stop writing your long Newtina story to write another, different Newtina story? That. I have that.

Loneliness, Newt Scamander had long ago decided, was like starving. It couldn’t be reasoned with. It made you desperate.

 

He’d known loneliness his whole life, being the quiet, shy, awkward younger son. His mother was loving, and the hippogriffs liked him well enough. More than his father or brother Theseus did, anyway. But he just didn’t make friends, not like other children did.

 

Certainly not like Theseus did.

 

His mother fretted, and briefly considered home-schooling him. When the Hogwarts acceptance letter came, however, his father stood firm. “Newt’s got enough magical gift to do well anywhere, my love,” he’d rumbled to his wife. “And anyone can teach you the mechanics of spells and potions. What Newt needs is other children. Socializing. He’s getting too isolated here as it is, and home-schooling in his case would only make it worse.”

 

So off to Hogwarts Newt went.

 

Too bad being surrounded by other children didn’t mean being accepted by them. Or liked by them. He still wasn’t really making friends, until he met Leta Lestrange.

 

She approached him first, when she found out that he was the other top student in Care of Magical Creatures. She was also different, though she seemed to be more at ease with other people than he was. At least, she didn’t shy away from them like he did. He started to notice that other people always did what Leta asked; she had a way of talking them around to it.

 

Pretty soon, Newt found himself being one of those people. He wasn’t sure if it was exactly… nice, or if Leta was as good a friend to him as she insisted that she was. But he wasn’t lonely anymore. He wasn’t starving.

 

The end of summer before Newt’s fifth year at Hogwarts, his brother had asked to speak to him alone. They went into the library, and his brother shut the door behind them. He sighed, and began.

 

“Look Newt, I know we haven’t had much to do with each other. Different interests, different circles, et cetera. But I need to warn you about Leta Lestrange. She’s a bad lot, Newt; she manipulates people to get what she wants. Uses them up and tosses them aside when she’s through,” Theseus explained. He sighed again. “We’ll never be close, you and I, but that doesn’t mean I want to see my baby brother get savaged.”

 

Newt managed to say, “I may be your younger brother, Theseus, but I’m not a baby. I’ll choose my own friends, thank you,” before turning around and leaving the library as fast as he could. He’d never been angrier, positively seething. Worst of all, he suspected the reason was that deep down, he knew Theseus was right.

 

But Theseus had **never** starved, his loneliness argued. Theseus had a banquet, and had the nerve to tell Newt he shouldn’t have candy. “Candy’s bad for you, Newt, give it up,” he’d seemed to say. “I know you’re starving, and _I won’t actually_ _give you any nutritious food_ , but I think you should give up that candy.”

 

Newt huffed. Theseus could go to the Devil.

 

###

 

When everything fell apart soon after, when Theseus was proved right and Leta was proved false, Newt felt more… numb than anything else. He wasn’t sure what he was meant to do next. But at least there was still his love of magical creatures. People were untrustworthy, he decided, and deserted you as they pleased, but creatures were straightforward. They didn’t plan and dissemble like human beings; they had needs, and if you won their trust and cared for them, they’d stay with you.

 

So Newt traveled the world, finding beasts where they did (and didn’t) belong. Some were hurt or alone, or had been trafficked, and those he took with him in his ever-expanding suitcase. He allowed himself some pride in the spellwork of that, since he knew how involved it was to create and maintain such magic. And he wasn’t starving. He had his beasts, and they had him.

 

Then after he rescued a Thunderbird (“I’ll call you Frank!”), Newt got on a ship for America to make sure Frank got back where he belonged. He never meant to stay in New York; he was headed for the wilds of Arizona. But things started going wrong from the start.

 

When Newt met Tina Goldstein, he thought she was like every other Auror. Outgoing, powerful, tough, rule abiding, and _dull_. The impression didn’t last, however. The more time he spent in her presence, the more she revealed about herself. Even though she was hardly like him at all, they had something important in common.

 

They knew what it was to be lonely.

 

Tina had dealt with it differently, however. Where Newt had turned inward, away from people, Tina had thrown herself into the thick of them. She’d fashioned armor over her battered, tender heart, and bore her own version of a flaming sword. As though she could defeat all the evil in the world, a world that had been cruel to her and her sister for no reason at all when it stole their parents.

 

And it wasn’t even all violence with her, he saw that soon enough. She was powerful and quick at dueling, and she was also sharp in her mind. But her warmth spilled over when she comforted a teen boy so out of place and out of control and hurting. And hadn’t he tried to do the same with a small girl in Sudan? He wasn’t successful either, in the end, but he recognized how hard she’d tried. And how much it hurt that trying wasn’t enough.

 

Maybe Tina could be a different sort of person than he’d ever met. The sort of person that didn’t abandon you. The sort you could trust.

 

###

 

Then it was all over, and time for him to get back on the boat. He wanted to go home, to devote himself to writing his book finally. When he realized it meant he would never see Tina again, a sharp ache like he’d never known settled in his chest. He tried to ignore it, and asked if she’d like a copy of his book once it was finished. Her smile didn’t ease the ache whatsoever.

 

He wasn’t starving, he reminded himself. He had his creatures, and that had been enough for years.

 

Tina wasn’t starving. She had a sister, and Queenie was big-hearted, expansive, truly enough for anyone. She’d surely be all right.

 

But as they lingered at the port, he couldn’t help wondering so many things. Firstly, he wondered if she would mind terribly if he presented his book to her in person, once it was finished. That, at least, he managed to say out loud.

 

But he wondered other things, too.

 

He wondered if her hair was always so soft.

 

He wondered if she’d smile as kindly at him when they met again.

 

And he wondered, if **she** ever wondered, what a life would be like that wasn’t simply failing to starve.

 

Perhaps one day he’d work up the courage to ask her.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfiction in years, so this is undoubtedly a little rusty. (Translation: this is probably terrible.) I do appreciate comments and constructive criticism.


End file.
